ATK, Fingerprinting and First Care Packages

March 29th was finally our official ATK!  Basically it means we've been Accepted To Korea and that Asa and Serenity are officially our referral.  After over 10 weeks of having our referral but not being official it was a relief to move forward to this important step.  

ATK means we are officially into the wait as well.  That wait could have us bringing them home any time from March to September 2014.  We hope.  Things are a bit up in the air in Korea as new laws regarding adoption were put into place last August and so no one has traveled under the new laws yet.  Hopefully in the next few months we'll have a little better idea when our kiddos will make it home.

April brought with it our fingerprinting appointment with USCIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services).  We expected that we might need to wait for an hour or more even but we made it in an hour before our appointment and were in and out in 10 minutes!  I'm sure we got lucky, but it made for a nice rest of the day.
   
April also brought our first chance to send Asa and Serenity's care packages.  I can't post their photos online because of our agency restrictions, but if I could you would see my daughter dressed in all neutrals.  At 9 months old my girly needs some pinks and purples in her life.  As someone who has generally rejected pink in all of its various shades I can hardly believe I'm writing that!  I guess having a boy and a girl to buy for at the same time means I'm much more open to having a little girly girl since I get to have all the fun of buying boy stuff too.

Anyway, lots of things to sign, notarize and mail off the first quarter of this year and probably not a whole lot going on for the next several months.  At least while we wait we should keep getting updates of our kiddos to keep us holding on.  Adoption is a lot of "hurry up and wait" and sometimes it's hard to not wish away the months.  Please pray for us, our kiddos and their foster moms as we continue to wait. :)